This afternoon, 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific, is the fun event I mentioned before: a “virtual book tour” discussion on a new-ish platform called Shindig. The idea is that I sit here with my webcam, talking to you and showing some pictures; you sit where you are, with your own webcam, as a potentially-participatory audience member. You can virtually “raise your hand” to ask a question, either by text or by audio in the post-talk Q&A. Different audience members can break off into groups to chat about things by themselves. It’s all free and open and quite experimental, so we’re trying to coax as many people into participating as possible. Certainly saves time (and fossil fuels) in comparison to jetting around the country.
The topic, of course, will be the new book, or really just the basics of the Higgs search and the Large Hadron Collider. I will give a brief overview, very casual, and anyone there should feel free to ask whatever they like.
Here’s an example of a Shindig event, featuring A.J. Jacobs.
Should be fun. Join us if you can!
This will be a big fail, bandwidth too shit in too many places, but I really admire your willingness to try out such things.
Anyway, on my linux firefox setup I get ‘The adobe Flash Plugin has Crashed”, so you won’t get my ugly mug from the UK at the shindig – I’d be interested to know if it worked for anyone across the Atlantic from the event (ie in Europe)
Hi Sean,
I was one of the attendees. I think this was great (apart from the minor techinical issues). I’m strongly in favour of more such events by you and other eminent and eloquent scientists! This will go a long way to publicize important research areas in Physics, which unfortunately still have the too-abstract-for-ordinary-people stigma attached to it. Educating non-Physicists about the importance of such work will only increase public support which should ultimately translate to better funding and financial support for research.
Hi Sean,
Really enjoyed your event! Shindig actually just held an event today for the Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science with authors Keith Frankish and Bill Ramsey. There was a bit of delay, but everything went well and both authors presented a compelling interview. Keith was broadcasting from Greece, so I am unsure as to why James Gallagher had such an issue.
I hope you do more events like this Sean!